REDWatch has organised a forum for each of the Heffron and
Marrickville electorates so that people can listen to the local candidates and
ask them their questions. The evenings will start at 6pm with an opportunity to
pick up materials supplied by the various parties, to formulate any questions
you would like to put to the candidates and get a quick cup of tea. The Forums
will start at 6.30 prompt with an address from each of the candidates, followed
by around 50 minutes of questions with closing comments from candidates to
finish at 8.30. For parts of Redfern and Darlington
that have been removed from Bligh to either Heffron or Marrickville this will
be an important opportunity to meet the candidates and find out about them and
their party’s proposals for our area. The details of the forums are below:

REDWatch has prepared a series of questions about Redfern
Waterloo Issues and circulated these to candidates. The questions are posted on
the Election
2007 section of the REDWatch website and the responses will be posted as
they are received. The website contains details of the candidates standing in
each electorate and any statements they have made about Redfern Waterloo
issues.

REDWatch does not support
any political party. REDWatch does encourage residents to be actively involved
in all aspects of their community life including politics. REDWatch wants to
see policies from all political parties that seriously address the needs,
concerns and aspirations of those who live and work in Redfern, Eveleigh,
Darlington and Waterloo
- the suburbs generally referred to as Redfern-Waterloo. Ideally REDWatch would
like to see a non-partisan approach by political parties to work with the
communities that live in Redfern Waterloo to find lasting solutions to the area’s
issues. REDWatch supports no party or candidate and seeks to generate community
discussion about what happens in our area.

With the election imminent and a new post-election cabinet
not far away, REDWatch has released its two year report card on the RWA and the
state government’s involvement in Redfern Waterloo. In An
Agenda for Redfern Waterloo Changes in 2007 - State Election Issues
REDWatch covers issues including the need for the government to adequately fund
programmes in Redfern Waterloo if there is to be any lasting change as a result
of the RWA’s published plans and the need for proper integration between the
different parts of the three plans. REDWatch points out that under the RWA Act
much of what happens in the RWA is determined by the Minister for Redfern
Waterloo and that many of the community’s concerns about specific elements of
the plans are able to be changed at the discretion of the current or future
Minister. REDWatch has renewed its call for the government to work in partnership
with the community in line with the recommendations of the Legislative
Council’s 2005 Social Issues Committee’s Inquiry into Redfern Waterloo.
REDWatch has also renewed its call for a Community Council to act as a
community reference group to the RWA across the broad range of the RWA and
government’s activities in Redfern Waterloo. This proposal was rejected by the
minister when he decided instead that he would hold four meetings a year with
the community. Other than a meeting specifically called for public housing
tenants the minister has never attended a Community Forum. The ten page REDWatch
report covers a number of other issues and can be downloaded from the here
(PDF 76 KB).

The REDWatch Agenda also
provides the basis of many of the Questions
for Candidates for March 24th 2007 NSW Election that REDWatch has supplied
to candidates in the seats of Marrickville and Heffron and upper house parties.
The questions can also be downloaded in PDF format here
(PDF100Kb). The Agenda and Questions
were adopted by the REDWatch meeting of 14th February 2007.

The next REDWatch meeting will finalise organisation of
the two community forums and discuss recent Redfern Waterloo events. REDWatch meetings
are open to all the community so if you want to get involved with other local
residents then come along. REDWatch meets downstairs at The Factory, 67 Raglan Street Waterloo
on the first Wednesday of each month.

The RWA website has announced that the Minister for
Redfern-Waterloo, Frank Sartor MP, has considered the issues raised in
submissions to the draft Contributions Plans and as a result, the Minister has
determined that the amended draft Affordable Housing Contributions Plan and the
Draft RWA Contributions Plan be re-exhibited to 5 April 2007. According to the
RWA website:

inclusion of a reference to a map indicating
land to which the Plan applies;

inclusion of an exemption clause to allow the
Minister to exempt certain types of development from having to pay the
contribution; and

clarification on when the Crown is required to
pay the contributions rate.

A quick check over the amended Plans shows that there has
been no change in the amounts that each of the plans proposes to raise or how
they are proposed to be spent. It appears as if the Minister is not of a mind
to take on board the question of adequacy of the levies to address the areas
needs. It is looking very much like the RWA is trying to speed up developments
in its area by offering lower levy’s that that proposed by the City of Sydney
knowing that at the end of the RWA’s life when the area reverts to local
council that they will then need to address the short fall in open space, public
amenity and affordable housing without the benefit of the income from the newly
developed areas.

The City of Sydney
has just gone through the public exhibition of their Section 94 Contributions Plan
and there is concern within council about the contrast between what the council
is proposing and what has been proposed by the RWA. In a media statement Fear for the Future of Southern
Sydney on 19 February 2007 the “Lord Mayor Clover Moore MP has called on
the State Government and the Redfern Waterloo Authority (RWA) to guarantee that
more than $1.8 billion worth of expected development will include provision for
essential community facilities and open space.
“The RWA’s draft contributions plan proposes a developer levy of just
two per cent or $36.7 million to provide community infrastructure such as
parks, childcare centres, pools and community facilities,” Ms Moore said. “In
contrast, the City of Sydney
has undertaken rigorous research for its contribution plan in the southern
suburbs which concluded that a developer levy of about seven per cent is needed
to just maintain existing open space and community facility ratios. The NSW
Property Council described the City’s levy as sensible.”

“In its submission on the Draft Redfern
Waterloo Authority Contributions Plan 2006 the City of Sydney supports the aim of revitalising the
Redfern-Waterloo area. In summary, the City of Sydney’s key issues and recommendations are:

(a) Open Space provision: The
Redfern-Waterloo Authority has not made a commitment to maintain the current
per capita rates of open space and the relatively low 2% contribution rate
cannot provide enough open space to maintain current rates. It is recommended
that a detailed public domain and an open space strategy be prepared to ensure
a sufficient quantity of additional high quality, safe, accessible public
spaces;

(b) Financial Risk: The works program is
general in nature and there is uncertainty as to the scope of cost estimates
for these works. It is recommended that the Redfern-Waterloo Authority identify
infrastructure standards and outcomes, and ensure adequate funding to achieve
them;

(c) Adequacy: The City questions whether the
proposed rate will be sufficient to provide the required infrastructure for the
future of the area. It is recommended that the Redfern-Waterloo Authority
investigate an increase in the proposed 2% levy in the range of up to 7% to
ensure adequate open space and infrastructure are provided; and

(d) Infrastructure Working Group: The City
strongly supports the establishment of a working group of the Redfern Waterloo
Authority, the Roads and Traffic Authority, Ministry of Transport, State
Transit, State Rail Authority and the City of Sydney to coordinate
infrastructure and asset planning.”

The RWA distributed a Redfern Waterloo Update February 2007 (pdf 156kb) around
the area on 22nd February 2007. As we had previously covered most of
the items in the RWA Update in our emails we did not rush out a new email. The RWA
Update cover story was the approval by Planning and Redfern-Waterloo Minister
Frank Sartor of the Channel 7 concept plan with a nice pre-election photo of
the NSW Premier and the Member for Heffron at the initial announcement of the
Channel 7 project in June 2006. Page two covered the Yaama Dhinawan graduation
last year at which the Minister for Education and Marrickville MP was present
and photographed with Aunty Beryl and the graduates. The RWA update also
carried details of the ILC’s National Indigenous Development Centre Community
Consultation on March 1st. While it is good for the RWA to tell the
good stories, the linking of local members to the stories in the lead up to the
election did upset some of the sitting member’s rival candidates.

On the last page of the update there was a piece on
“Progress on Redfern Station upgrade” which was of particular interest as it
announced that “NSW Premier, Morris Iemma, released the Government’s Urban Transport
Statement in November last year which lists the Redfern Station upgrade as a
Capacity and Service Improvement Initiative to be implemented by 2011.”
We had obviously missed this in the Urban Transport statement. A search of the
PDF document only turns up 3 general references to the word Redfern, but when
we went back over the document sure enough the “Capacity and Service
Improvement Initiatives 2011 Map has both the Redfern Station Upgrade and the
Newtown Easy Access upgrade marked. We have put the non text searchable map up
on the REDWatch website at "Capacity
and service improvements Initiatives 2011*" (PDF 250Kb) so you can see
the mention. There was no mention in the RWA Update of when the
community might see the Redfern Station options that are being worked on which
the Draft RWA Built Environment Plan expected to be available around the end of
2006.

The RWA Update also advised that NSW Health has lodged a
preliminary application with the Department of Planning for its Director
General’s Requirements (DGRs) and that, subject to public exhibition and
approval, work is scheduled to commence later this year. To date the Department
of Planning has not placed the Department of Health preliminary application on
their major project website so we can not see what has been submitted. We
understand that the preliminary application has been circulated to government
departments and council, as City of Sydney
Council received a copy a day or so before the RWA Update
came out and had only 10 days to advise the Department of Planning of what they
thought should be in the DGRs. It is likely that the community will not get any
details of what is being proposed for the former court house and police station
until after the Department of Health receive the DGRs.

Finally the RWA Update did the sums for the as yet
unreleased RWA Affordable Housing Programme and announced that “the
NSW Government will be able to invest about 60 million in the provision of
affordable housing in Redfern-Waterloo over the next 10-12 years”. This
figure is a combination of an estimated $23million from the CUB site, $35
million from the proposed RWA Affordable Housing Contributions Plan and the $1
million the RWA will contribute as part of the $16 million that will go towards
affordable housing for Aboriginal residents. While this sounds like a lot of
money it is worthwhile doing some calculations. If the RWA took the same percentage
levy for affordable housing from the RWA state significant sites as it will
from the CUB site, then the figure the “state government would invest” would be
around $106 million. If the state government put in a similar contribution to
affordable housing from the state significant sites as it did in Pyrmont Ultimo
the state contribution would be of the order of $123 million which is the same
as the expected cost of the Chanel 7 ATP development. This is more than double
the figure mentioned in the RWA Update. If, as was the case in Pyrmont Ultimo,
the state government could get the federal government to match the state’s
contribution, then the RWA could end up with close to $250 million for
affordable housing in Redfern Waterloo. Now that would be a target to get
excited about in an RWA Update!

The Australian of 22nd February 2007 ran the
story Indigenous city housing
scrapped in which the Federal Minister for Indigenous Affairs Mal Brough
said that he was taking a proposal to cabinet to abolish funding of Aboriginal-specific
public housing in cities and to redirect the money to Aboriginal housing in remote
areas instead. The RWA announced in mid 2006 that they were looking for matching
federal funds for the $16 million that they have earmarked for Aboriginal affordable
housing in Redfern Waterloo. It is to be hoped that the RWA can use its ‘Redfern
Waterloo Partnership Agreement June 2006” which is “An initiative of the Commonwealth
and NSW Governments to co-operate on enhancing the economic and social revitalisation
of Redfern-Waterloo in relation to the Indigenous community” to deliver funding
for their proposed Aboriginal housing and that it will not be caught up in this
policy change. The RWA have a map Index of
Disadvantage - Socio-economic profile for the Redfern-Waterloo Operational
Area, 1996 and 2001 (Jpg 83Kb) in
their draft Affordable Housing Contributions Plan. This shows the
change in the level of disadvantage in the area in the five years prior to 2001
and the trend can only be expected to have continued since then. The pushing
out of those with high disadvantage from areas other than public housing shows
the desperate need for affordable housing in Redfern Waterloo and this especially
impacts on the Aboriginal communities. The maps seem to make a good case for
continued housing assistance from the Federal Government for Aboriginal
families associated with the Redfern Waterloo area; hopefully the RWA can
persuade the federal government of this.

Green Square
Town Centre to Start Moving and a new website

The City of Sydney Lord Mayor
and the Minister for Planning have jointly announced that the Green
Square Town Centre Project is moving to tender. The Landcom media release
states: “This is a significant milestone for the 14-hectare Town Centre which
will be at the heart of the 278 hectare renewal area,” Mr Sartor said. “This is
a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create 7,000 new jobs close to the city
and homes for 5,500 residents. “The project will generate an estimated $1.7
billion in direct investment for NSW. It will also help the NSW Government to
achieve key priorities in the State Plan – including more jobs closer to home
for hard-working families. “Sydney
is a global city and I am confident this development will be world-class.” In
the first stage of tenders, Landcom will call for Expressions of Interest for a
package of sites covering just under half of the total Town Centre area, or
more than 200,000 square metres of floor space.” The Lord Mayor’s media
release City of Sydney puts the
Green back into Green Square and the Lord Mayor’s speech are on the
REDWatch website.

A new website has been
established for Green Square Town Centre and for the Waterloo
Incinerator Site at http://www.gstc.com.au/.

The City of Sydney Council has posted the Final Waterloo and Redfern Urban
Design Study Report and the Recommended Draft Planning Controls for Waterloo and Redfern on
the Council’s website at http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/Development/CityPlan/SiteSpecificPlanning/Redfern.asp.
For those familiar with the drafts the council has also posted “marked up”
versions so that it is easy to identify the changes made. The map of Department
of Housing land in Appendix E (PDF 114Kb) is now in the same format as the other maps within
the design study and can hence be more easily compared with building types and
proposed control maps.

The ILC expects their application to be submitted to the Department
of Planning in March and for it to be on public exhibition in April 2007.
Negotiations are still ongoing with PCYC about moving on to the site. While the
PCYC has been offered a 50 year lease on their present site a lot of money needs
to be spent to remedy the present building’s problems, so the PCYC is still
considering the move to the ILC’s NIDC. While the former school was purchased by
the ILC, it is still unclear how the site will be managed and who will own and
administer it in the long term. Unlike many sites where the ILC has bought it for
an existing Aboriginal organisation, the project at the Redfern School
site is for a national venture and could have been placed in a number of
different locations. While there will be space for local organisations to run
programmes the issue of how the local Aboriginal community will be involved is
yet to be worked through. Further information about the project can be obtained
from Stuart Waters at Twyford Consulting, P.O. Box 6004, Wollongong
NSW. Phone: 1800 11 00 55 Email: Twyford@twyford.com.au
.

The current round of City of Sydney DAs
includes a DA for work that would allow the CoS Redfern One Stop to move from
the old TNT towers into council owned premises at Redfern Town Hall.
The City proposes to share the space with the current tenant - Redfern Legal
Centre. To be able to accommodate both tenants, the war memorial feature in the
back upstairs meeting room will need to be relocated to the main meeting hall.
The details of the DA including the proposed memorial move can be found on the
council’s web site at http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/Development/DAsOnExhibition/details.asp?tpk=824217

The City of Sydney
Council is set to knock back the eight AFZ in the
Redfern Local Area Command that were proposed for the area around the Block by
the Aboriginal Housing Company and Redfern Waterloo Authority. The council
report on the Proposal to establish alcohol free zones | PDF 29Kb says:

The Redfern Police Local Area Command’s
submission does not support establishment of AFZ in Eveleigh Street, Louise Street, Vine Street, Caroline Street, Holden Street, Eveleigh Lane, Caroline Lane and Lawson Street, Redfern. The Redfern
Police Command has stated that the proposed AFZ would be difficult to enforce
due to the large areas of open space that surround these streets. This space
contains Council’s Redfern Community Centre and private land. AFZ can only
apply to public streets and footpaths. Council staff have had discussions with
the Redfern Police Commander, Redfern Waterloo Authority and Aboriginal Housing
Company who agree to participate in the development of an alcohol management
plan for the local area in consultation with all stakeholders and local
residents.

In the last update we asked people to let us know about the
meeting referred to in the article Shot in the arm for inner
south. We have since learnt that the first meeting was held in December
last year at Fratelli Fresh with the guest speaker being the City of Sydney CEO
Monica Barone who spoke on Sydney's grand vision and council's 2030 plan for
the city including ideas on transport, population growth, efficient water and
energy use. The next meeting will be held in March with the RWA CEO as guest
speaker. We have been told that representatives from the local Chamber of
Commerce were also not invited to the last meeting. Geoff Turnbull has been
invited to the next meeting and it will be interesting to see who else is
invited. The meetings are an initiative of Peter Holmes a Court and are based
on quarterly meetings he was involved with in the re-development of one of the Hollywood precincts that brought together large and small
developers, artists, chefs, thinkers, architects and City & State
officials.

As part of one of the Souths’
jumper deals the media has reported that Pauper Bunnies now NRL
princes. Trivest which is involved in the away jersey sponsorship will
also be involved in the re-development of the Leagues Club in Redfern according
to AAP. Regarding the development the report said:

‘The $35 million re-development
proposal includes acquisition costs, a $3 million fit out for the leagues club
plus new football club headquarters and 10,000 square metres of commercial
space to be leased. Albert Bertini, director of Trivest, said the planned
development would be complete by March 2008 - matching the scheduled finish of
upgrades to Redfern Oval. Bertini said the plans would give Redfern a huge
facelift and help improve the image of the area. "The leagues club will be
one of the best leagues clubs," he said. "We are talking to major
tenants now (commercial space), we are talking price and let me just say it
will be profitable. "It is confidential but anything we do is fairly
substantial. "We are looking at more projects around the area. It will
have a big impact. "(Property prices) will go up, the commercial property
around the area still has a long way to go for its values to go up but it's
going to go up very strongly in the next five years and people will wake up to
that."’

The NSW Government recently amended the Environmental
Planning and Assessment Act 1979 by introducing a new Part 3A that deals with
major projects. The amendments have been widely criticised by community and
environment groups for their concentration of decision-making power with the
Minister for Planning and their impact on public participation in planning
decisions. The government and industry groups claim that the changes were
necessary to streamline development processes in NSW and will not negatively
impact on community amenity or the environment. Who is right? Come along and
hear both sides of the story in this topical 2-hour free seminar hosted by the
Environmental Defender’s Office at DLA Phillips Fox, 201 Elizabeth St Sydney
(entry via door on corner of Park and Elizabeth
Street). RSVP to Tisha Dejmanee at tisha.dejmanee@edo.org.au or 9262-6989. The audience will be invited to
put questions to the panel. The seminar will be chaired by Jeff Smith, CEO,
Environmental Defender’s Office and Speakers include: Cate Faehrmann from the
Nature Conservation Council, Ken Morrison, from the Property Council of
Australia and Cr Sam Byrne from the Local Government and Shires Associations.
Those with an interest in this topic might also like to read the Sydney Morning
Herald article Let Sydney grow or lose $6b:
developers about NSW Urban Taskforce pre-election push and their
report, Imagine NSW Without Development and the online opinion piece by Brad Rutting on Developing Democratic
town planning.

Keith Vincent Smith has spent 15 years researching Sydney’s original peoples
and their cultural landscape. Eora: Mapping Aboriginal Sydney 1770 - 1850, a
groundbreaking exhibition mounted at the State Library in 2006, has been one of
the fruits of his labours. In this illustrated talk, Keith Vincent Smith shares
the stories of some of the Aboriginal families and places that are documented
through the European records of colonisation: paintings, watercolours, maps,
newspapers, diaries, and letters. There will also be a discussion and demonstration
of Virtual Warrane, an interactive tour of the Aboriginal heritage of Warrane
(Sydney Cove). You too can personally experience the cultural landscape and
people of Sydney
in 1788 through Virtual Warrane at Customs House, 31 Alfred Street Circular Quay,
throughout March and April. The Sydney Heritage Festival Lecture is co-hosted by
the City of Sydney council and the City of Sydney Historical Association.
Wheelchair access, refreshments provided. Free Enquiries 9518 8730 120 max

Waterloo’s landscape was
once dominated by a series of swamps and creeks that drained to Botany Bay. View a pictorial display of early images and maps
of the area that show these natural assets that transformed the natural and
cultural landscape. Wheelchair access. Free Enquiries 9288 5688

Have your say
– Summary of Current Consultations

Below we have listed consultations currently open for community
input and provided a link for further information: